Understanding Crisis in Waziristan

VIEW FROM PAKISTAN
Long War in Waziristan By Amir Mir
Outlook India: August 31, 2006

The nonstop violence in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the Pak-Afghan border has become a cause of great concern for the United States and her allies in the war on terror, especially Afghanistan, given the fact that the Taliban have virtually taken over the entire North Waziristan tribal area, which could be used as a major military base to wage their resistance against the US-led forces in Afghanistan.

The ongoing fighting began in 2004, when the Pakistan Army entered the region inhabited by the Waziri tribe in search of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who were using the Waziristan area as a base for launching deadly attacks against the US-led Allied forces in Afghanistan. Since the fighting began, the Pakistani forces have suffered heavy casualties at the hands of the Taliban militia due to roadside bombs and ambushes. The law and order situation in the lawless tribal border land has come to a pass where the writ of the Pakistan Government is almost non existent.

Almost three years down the road after the military operations were launched, the Taliban militia, backed by al Qaeda, has virtually established an Islamic Republic in the rugged and remote Waziristan region, with the Pakistan Army desperately trying to broker a peace deal with it. While the Army wants an assurance from the Taliban that they would not cross the Pak-Afghan border to attack the US-led coalition forces, the militants want the military authorities to release all their colleagues and pay monetary compensation for the damage caused to their property during the operations, to pave the way for the peace deal.

On July 25, 2006, the militants in North Waziristan had announced a ceasefire which they subsequently extended to September 10, 2006, as Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman joined efforts to help clear some obstacles to an agreement for restoring peace in the restive tribal region. Two of the three issues that have bedeviled the peace agreement have already been taken care of: the release of over a dozen militants and the return of seized weaponry. However, the withdrawal of the military from the North Waziristan Agency, one of the key militants’ demands, is yet to be worked out.

Despite the deployment of over 80,000 Pakistani troops along the Afghan border in the tribal areas to capture the fugitive Taliban and al Qaeda elements, the situation is far from stable in a region that is crucial to three world capitals -- Islamabad, Washington and Kabul. Waziristan, often in the news due to frequent clashes between Pakistani security forces and the Taliban militants, is now more-or-less controlled by the local Taliban, which has established a foothold in both North and South Waziristan and has opened recruiting offices these areas to hire new fighters.

As the recruitment drive started last year, many former members of Pakistani jehadi organizations belonging to the banned Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI), Laskhar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), have converged on North and South Waziristan. According to rough estimates, about 25,000 activists of several jehadi organisation had assembled in North and South Waziristan alone in 2005, with the declared determination to "fight until the last man and the last bullet". And most of them are still siding with the local Taliban in their ongoing fight against the Pakistani security forces.

Waziristan, 11,585 square kilometers of remote mountain valleys, is historically an area that cannot easily be conquered or subjugated. Most of the Taliban active in the region are largely members of Pashtun tribes, although they include some Afghans, Uzbeks, Chechens, and Arabs who fled Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime.

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